ADC

Do you, honestly, believe that it will be possible to recruit the Reserves to the new Establishment figure in the necessary time, with the resources at your disposal, to deliver the required Army 2020 outputs?

Old-Salt

What is the rationale for putting all artillery and engineer regiments under 1-star commands, instead of having the support elements as part of manoeuvre brigades, like in the rest of the world? What does it do to improve capability?
We know that engineer and artillery regiments will be divided, 3 of each in "Reaction" configuration and 2 of each in "Adaptable". Such regiments will be different for structure, equipment used and manpower. They are also due to be based close to either the Reaction Brigades or the Adaptable brigades. Yet, they are all expected to respond to 1st Artillery and 8th Engineering brigades. Why? I can't think of a single other nation in the world doing the same thing.

What capabilities is the army losing? Significant investment has been made in the years to develop strategic enablers such as fast river crossing with the M3 rigs: what will happen to such capability as 28 Engineer Regiment disbands?
What are the long term plans for route clearance capability: will TALISMAN be abandoned when UOR funding from the Treasury dries up, or is this important capability being brought into Core Budget?

LE

Reserves again - how are the Army as a whole going to change in order to meet the Regular/Reserve integration challenge? It should hopefully involve change on both sides - but thus far, over the years, such change has always been 'one way', and there remains little sign of the Regular forces changing their working patterns, Equipment Scaling, Accommodation (both technical and domestic) or training schedules. To be fair, a lot of this is out of their hands, but if there is to be genuine 'pairing' of TA and Regular Units, then this will cost, and cost big, in both cash terms (more equipment held by Units? More Accomm avaiable?) and in terms of a change of ethos in many cases.

LE

At the simplest level. My TA Company can not train to at least CT2, let alone CT3, level as I lack the means for the Company to communicate beyond PPR range. I have 3 broken 351's that work, as long as the freq is below 40Mhz as that switch is broken. I have no masts and no 20w amps, restricting the range I can work at.

Give me the right kit in working order and I can fullfil my side of CT2 training.

Clanker

A question about recruiting. How is the Army expecting to recruit to 30000 reservists, when, under the new contact with capita there is now a cap on number of days available for recruiting events (400 for the whole south region) and, rumour has it, that units are bring fined 6 figures for breaching corporate mis-selling rules by not having their recruiting events authorised by captia, and in some cases being banned from recruiting?

EScotia

Guest

Q1. Are you, the regular army, ever going to ensure that only the most experienced, best qualified and keen Officers and other ranks are sent to TA/Reserve Units to become permanent Staff and ensure these posts are seen (and proven to be) as career enhancing/failing?

Q2. How are you, the regular army, going to fund the MTD allocation to enable the TA/Reserve army to constantly train at a level that ensures there is the minimum operational training required for the reserves to deploy on operations with their regular counterparts?

Q3. What plans are in place to ensure the modern equipment being introduced to the TA is maintained at the appropriate levels of availability in a cost effective manner?

Q4. How does the regular army ensure their TA/Reserve cohort have the necessary courses, experience and time in post to fill PIDs in the operational Orbat without "just taking their word for it"?

War Hero

At the simplest level. My TA Company can not train to at least CT2, let alone CT3, level as I lack the means for the Company to communicate beyond PPR range. I have 3 broken 351's that work, as long as the freq is below 40Mhz as that switch is broken. I have no masts and no 20w amps, restricting the range I can work at.

Give me the right kit in working order and I can fullfil my side of CT2 training.

Following on from this point, and this is about Siganls equipment scaling to REserve Infantry Battalions, and Infantry Signals training:
1) Thankfully my Bn is in a slightly better position kit wise in that we have loan pool BOWMAN KIT. However only barely enough for 1 Coy, which I have to allocate as best as possible for Bn Exercises. However Kitmarlowe's point stands. Without the kit we cannot train effectively.
2) Infantry Signals traning. This has degraded over the past few (10ish) years. First of all we do not hold enough Bowman on account to keep the guys current. Secondly SWS CIS Div is no longer supplying the courses which they used to to the TA/Army Reseve. In old Clansman days we had TARU ( Bn run), RS ( SWS run), RSDC/RSJ ( SWS run), RSCVS (SWS run), and an RSWO/RSO course (SWS run).
The RSWO/RSO course was dropped first, now the RS course (as per telecon with DSM CIS Div SWS earlier this week) has been binned leaving a training gap between BRU & IPRO qualified Infanteers for when, and if they are sent on RSDC ( in the Regulars there is a 5 week RS(b) cadre between IPRO and RSDC).

How are the TA/Army Reserve CIS Platoons supposed to support their Bn training, and the task of helping supply qualified/competent IRs, or even formed subunits to the Regulars without this support (kit and training) ?

(Apologies, this is not a key question, but a CIS specific one, however kit/training support is certainly an issue if more is wanted from the Reserve).

LE

Army Basing Plan
How is the splitting of regional brigade responsibilities between an civilian facing HQ (very similar to the previously used "Districts") and a military facing Bde going to:
a. not be disastrously detrimental to what is currently rather critical MCI and community engagement?
b. make up for the utter abortion that was AVANTI?
c. not be simply a "jobs for the boys" exercise? (Cheap shot I know - as alluded to elsewhere, the creation of the 1* Artillery Brigade HQ in the South West makes little operational sense, doesn't reflect allies' structures and wastes resources)

LE

What is the spending profile of the reported extra a billion over ten years on the reserves. When you boil the headline number down to either TAC's, number of units or personnel numbers and divide by ten it is a very small amount.

Is the extra investment to cover pay, training, recruiting or equipment.

If it covers equipment, how will this be used to bridge the massive chasm between what might be considered theatre type spec and what is used for training

The UK continues to resource a 3* deployable formation HQ (ARRC). This comes at a considerable cost in dedicated manpower and specialist equipment. Given changing strategic assumptions, is this really a wise use of resources that could be better used elsewhere? Isn't the truth that the ARRC only exists to provide an opportunity for a UK officer to claim that he has commanded at this level?

LE

Davetheclown

Guest

1, The army used to be based on the long career model, Pte to WO1 in 22 years. As SDSR has shown peoples careers were suddenly cut short? Will there be a short career scheme of 5 years service be introduced to allow long career people gain there promotion on time. For example at the grading board, if there are two candidates and one candidate is on long career scheme and requires that promotion they can automatically gazump the short career soldier on the grading board?

2 Will there be protection on grading boards for regular soldiers who have to work alongside reserve soldiers being negatively graded for being at a particular unit?

3 Can there be a system set up so that Regular soldiers get preferential posting, i.e. that a reserve soldier does not fill a place that can cause career foul, welfare issue and unit nepotism. All best efforts to fill a spot must be made to fill a slot with a regular soldier?

4 Can there be a scheme in place so that long term single soldiers, 10 yrs. plus do not have to live in the block (JNCO). Have MQ houses (shared). This would free up valuable garrison space, and reverse the institutionalism that happens to these soldiers, increase responsibility and prepare them for life outside the forces?

5 Finally can we finally decide on doctrine regarding conventional warfare and asymmetrical warfare, mixing between the two is not a good plan and is causing concern on future threat and capability?

6 Can we have snap audits on reserve units with a crash out test, feasibility test, fitness for fighting test. Similar to the FOST exercises that the Royal Navy do. These FOST tests are feared in the navy and are a necessary evil but are effective in strengthening command and weak areas?

7 Can we stop utilising foreign commonwealth soldiers to fill the ranks, there are a lot of capable men losing there jobs and being made unemployed and F&C soldiers filling those spots. Its not racism it is a direct question of supply and demand.

8 Can we also find a strategy to dealing with Soldiers getting pregnant within the career. A pregnant soldier is a loss to the unit albeit temporarily however as manpower has shrunk this is having a effect on operational capability and unit cohesion. We cannot ignore the right for women to bear children, just can we utilise the reserve to cover those that are away for that period? a) those that do become pregnant within service should serve an extra six months, and also be exempt from redundancy packages and if serving within the first five years lose the rights to bonus. ?

9 Can a declaration of interest ruling be made, that any Officer as part of procurement be banned from working for ten years with the contractor that they are dealing with on any particular project once they leave service ?

10 Would it be possible if we can have a military association (BAFF) as a representative lobbying body for and on behalf of all serviceman.? Further to that can we have a separate investigation and reporting body for serviceman that is outside of the chain of command and also have direct prosecution access to the military court service. Harassment and bullying within the army is prevalent and the armed forces cannot self police fairly.

Old-Salt

Although there has been an emphasis over the last few years on improving accommodation for single soldiers with the SLAM project, what plans are there in place to improve and increase the amount of accommodation for married soldiers and their families?

Already in several locations there is insufficient accommodation available resulting in soldiers on posting being forced to go married unaccompanied for considerable periods, sometimes with very negative effects on their family relationships. With the rebasing of major units to more centralised locations, including the return of several from Germany, where are families going to be quartered? Is there going to be investment in new quarters or will there be an extension of the current solution to buy in to new developments locally, thus affecting the local authorities' housing plan, or rent locally, which is expensive?

In addition a significant proportion of this accomodation is in a poor state of repair following years of underinvestment and poor management. MHS have improved but DIO don't seem to care or even understand what they are meant to be managing. Is there going to be any increase in the budget to repair or rebuild substandard quarters?

With units possibly being stationed in locations longer will there be pressure put upon soldiers to buy their own properties locally thus reducing the need for quarters? Will there be a recurrence of the plan to limit soldiers entitlement to quartering to eight years? What plans are there to quarter those who, of necessity (attached arms, those with career aspirations, Doctors, Dentists, Chaplains, etc), need to move around for their career development?

MIA

First, with the rebasing of major units, and drawdown of BFG, what arrangements are being put in place to ensure that service personnel can receive timely and appropriate secondary medical care locally, without placing strain on existing NHS resources?

Second, and bearing in mind that PRUs are already overburdened, what arrangements are being made to ensure that there is suitable specialist welfare support for service personnel whilst in hospital, and has additional funding been put in place to ensure care throughout the recovery pathway?

Third, as more service personnel are being treated outside MDHU hospitals, what formal arrangements have been made with the NHS to ensure that welfare services can access service patients without difficulty, in order to ensure that the unique needs of service patients can be met?

EScotia

Guest

First, with the rebasing of major units, and drawdown of BFG, what arrangements are being put in place to ensure that service personnel can receive timely and appropriate secondary medical care locally, without placing strain on existing NHS resources?

Second, and bearing in mind that PRUs are already overburdened, what arrangements are being made to ensure that there is suitable specialist welfare support for service personnel whilst in hospital, and has additional funding been put in place to ensure care throughout the recovery pathway?

Third, as more service personnel are being treated outside MDHU hospitals, what formal arrangements have been made with the NHS to ensure that welfare services can access service patients without difficulty, in order to ensure that the unique needs of service patients can be met?

Since the demise of 2 Div, it's departments and staff, and the imminent demise of RAF Leuchars, what arrangements have been put into place to cover the Welfare needs of servicemen and their families in Scotland?